Bloomberg projects that peak oil usage is coming in six years:
Back in the day, many of us predicted that peak oil would arrive by 2015 or so. But that was based on the ability to produce oil, and it turned out to be wrong thanks to the shale oil revolution. Bloomberg's forecast, by contrast, is based on demand. They estimate that demand for oil will peak in a few years thanks mostly to the adoption of electric vehicles, while demand for petrochemicals and non-road transport keep rising.
As an aside, it turns out that all of us peak oil fans were mostly right back in 2005 when we predicted oil production would hit its peak around 2015.¹ The big question at the time was the future of OPEC oil production, and Saudi production in particular. And guess what? OPEC production has been flat (actually down slightly) ever since then, and Saudi production is up only slightly (about 9%), nowhere near the 15 million barrels per day maximum they claimed at the time. Total worldwide production of conventional oil has been flat since 2015, with all the growth coming from unconventional sources, primarily shale oil.
In other words, aside from shale oil and a couple of other small developments it turns out that we really did reach peak oil by about 2015.
¹Curious about what I said back then? It's all in a long, multi-part post I did for the Washington Monthly. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Epilogue. Nut graf: "New discoveries will continue to decline and oil production will reach its peak in about 10 years."
wait, I was a millionaire in 2015 except I was lacking $900,000?
Peak oil predictions date back to the 1970's. Further, why exclude shale as its a nearly, a direct substitute for liquid oil....
"Peak oil predictions date back to the 1970's"
I know, right? Dumb peak-oilers. Why, they'll be wrong every single time (except for the last time).
Gee, I thought the Saudis were producing less oil in order to honor Donald Trump’s request that they do so in order to prop up prices for the American oil companies.
Back in the day - the 1958-59 school year at Cal Biserkeley, when my girl friend - later wife was a freshman, I would read some of her reading assignments. One was about peak oil by Hubbert. Everything old is new. Wish I was new.
As for OPEC, how much they pump is as much a function of control over price as it is physical ability.
Why does this chart assume little electrification?
What do you mean? In non-transport uses? The transport uses look like they might reflect stopping sales of light-duty ICE worldwide in 2040.
Supply-side peak oil was always bogus. Approaching peak oil at some price point increases the price point to increase supply. That effect led to the development of shale oil, which kept the supply point in check so that it wasn't cost-effective for Saudi Arabia to further develop how fast they pump oil.
"Supply-side peak oil was always bogus. Approaching peak oil at some price point increases the price point to increase supply. "
Indeed! The laws of physics and chemistry are powerless in the face of the economic laws of supply and demand. Why, if supply ever fell, demand would necessitate that oil be magiked into existence to meet it, geology be damned!
The snark would work better if supply-side peak oil predictions hadn't proved to be so bogus. Peak oil didn't say no more oil would exist, just that it would be economically infeasible to extract it.
And then? In the face of economic demands, we managed to extract a whole bunch more oil.
ilililili is pretty silly boasting of their 20-20 hindsight. But you're trying to claim that hindsight was wrong, when it provably wasn't.
"But you're trying to claim that hindsight was wrong, when it provably wasn't."
Not at all. My point is that the argument against concerns about peak oil that ililililili lays out (scarcity begets higher prices which begets innovation to resolve scarcity ergo resources cannot be depleted) is fundamentally mistaken: illilillili and their ilk conflates a homestatic mechanism that moderates resource extraction with the physical existence of the resource.
"Peak oil didn't say no more oil would exist, just that it would be economically infeasible to extract it."
And someday it will (if we don't stop using it for some other reason), because whether or not humanity at some point thinks another marginal barrel of oil is not worth the dollars to get it, at some point we extract and burn the last barrel of oil that takes less than an oil-barrelsworth of energy to extract.
Saudis just cut oil. You sure their output is due to peak oil and not manipulating the market?